The present invention relates to a digital kick meter, and more particularly to a digital kick meter having a graphical user interface (GUI).
In the telecommunications industry, the distance or status of a communication wire can be measured by a “kick meter” function of a device, sometimes called a “kick test.” A kick meter is a device that is used to measure the amount of capacitance, voltage or resistance on a copper telephone wire pair within a cable. The wire pair includes a tip and ring conductor continuously twisted throughout the length of the cable. The overall cable is typically covered with a metallic shield, which is usually grounded. These three conductors are often referred to simply as the “tip, ring and ground” conductors of the cable. The kick test measurement is accomplished using an ohmmeter function of the test device that applies a voltage across the wire pair and displays a value proportional to the current flowing into the pair. The display of this value is usually done with the movement of a mechanical meter such as a needle.
When the voltage is initially applied across the wire pair (tip and ring conductors), the current flowing into the pair will be high due to the charging of the capacitance between the two conductive wires. As the capacitance between the wires becomes charged, the current flowing into the pair decreases exponentially to a negligible amount. The user of the test device observes the needle of the meter “kicking” up to a peak value and then decaying to zero. The user can then reverse the connection of the leads of the ohmmeter to the wire pair, and the meter will “kick” again. This is caused by the current flow being reversed into the wire pair and the capacitance being charged again in the opposite polarity. The reversing of connections can be repeated until the user is able to determine a consistent peak or “kick” value on the meter.
Typically the meter of a test device is marked with graduations from 0 to 100 “points.” Generally, the length of a cable and the capacitance between the conductive wires of the pair are proportional to one another. As a result, the “kick” is larger for longer cable lengths. Using a lookup table or a graph, the user can approximate the cable length from the “kick” points value.
In addition, a “kick test” can be performed to determine how well the wire pair is balanced, by comparing the “kick” when the ohmmeter leads are connected to the tip and ground conductors to the “kick” when the ohmmeter leads are connected to the ring and ground conductors. A “kick meter” can also be used to determine if a resistive fault or foreign voltage is present on the pair, by observing whether the value displayed on the meter during certain measurements decays all the way to zero or retains a non-zero value after the decay is complete.